WhyLabs Raises $10M from Andrew Ng, Defy Partners to bring AI observability to every AI practitioner

AI Observatory, the WhyLabs SaaS Platform for monitoring data health and model health, is now available for free, self-serve usage. To get started, click here.

SEATTLE, November 4, 2021 — WhyLabs, the leading provider of observability for AI and data applications announced today the close of a $10 million Series A co-led by Defy Partners and Andrew Ng’s AI Fund, with participation from existing investors including Madrona Venture Group and Bezos Expeditions. The company will use the investment to meet growing demand, expand platform capabilities, scale operations and continue building its world-class team.

This round of funding comes as WhyLabs opens up AI Observatory – the industry’s first Observability SaaS Platform – which enables teams to monitor, understand, and improve their AI applications. AI Observatory is also the first monitoring solution that AI builders can self-onboard and start using for free.

“ML engineers need better tools to ensure high-quality data through all stages of an ML project’s lifecycle,” said Andrew Ng, Managing General Partner at the AI Fund. “AI Fund is excited to support WhyLabs, whose open source logging library and AI observability platform makes it easy for developers to maintain real time logs and monitor ML deployments.”

“At Airspace, we use AI to minimize risk across the supply chain for the world’s most critical shipments. WhyLabs has been instrumental in driving the scalability of our AI operations. The platform offers easy onboarding, data privacy-friendly integration, and a command-center view that allows us to quickly identify and treat problems before they impact the user experience. The downstream impact of enabling observability is that we are able to continuously expand on our differentiating technology by leveraging machine learning for more use cases,” said Ryan Rusnak, co-founder and CTO at Airspace.

“At Stitch Fix we have hundreds of workflows that connect to production microservices all driven and deployed by Algorithms team members,” said Stefan Krawczyk, Manager of Model Lifecycle at Stitch Fix, “Observability is essential to ensure that these services are robust and deliver consistent customer experiences. We are excited to collaborate with WhyLabs on building an open source standard for data logging that helps us streamline observability across our data and AI pipelines, be it offline or online.”

It is a truth now universally acknowledged that enterprises in possession of ML applications must be in want of an observability platform to keep their models from failing catastrophically. In talking with over 200 data science teams, WhyLabs discovered that the most forward-thinking teams take a two-pronged approach to operating and maintaining their models - they focus on tracking both data health and model health. WhyLabs’ AI Observatory is the first observability solution that enables continuous monitoring of both data and model health and their mutual interactions. By using WhyLabs to automate the monitoring of ML and data pipelines, teams can dramatically reduce manual operations, accelerate the time-to-resolution of model failures, and focus on shipping reliable AI-powered solutions faster. Organizations, ranging from AI-first startups to Fortune 500 companies, rely on WhyLabs to establish observability across data and model pipelines. Customers come from industries representing fintech, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, martech, retail, e-commerce, and real estate.

“AI observability is mission-critical for production ML applications. At WhyLabs we are removing barriers for the adoption of this essential technology,”  said Alessya Visnjic, CEO at WhyLabs. “Furthermore, we are defining Observability not just as a set of tools, but as a process and a culture that ML organizations can adopt going forward. And the industry is responding. In just the first week since opening AI Observatory, we saw AI builders from over a dozen organizations onboard the platform. There is a need for these tools and for a community based approach for building best practices. We are thrilled to be partnering with industry experts and leading the movement that will make AI Observability a ubiquitous part of every production ML stack.”

“WhyLabs is in a unique position to transform how AI is governed and MLOps is managed by any enterprise with the rapid adoption of its observability platform and data logging library,” said Neil Sequeira, founder and partner at Defy Partners who joined the WhyLabs Board of Directors. “They have built what is effectively a control center for operating AI applications. In turn, their technology has a meaningful positive impact on intelligent application builders and the hundreds of millions of people touched by AI every day.”

The team is executing on an ambitious product roadmap with many new features launching in the coming months. From purpose-build image and NLP observability, to proactive identification of model deficiencies, to integrations with real-time and on-device ML applications. Every AI practitioner can experience AI Observatory today at http://whylabs.ai. It will take less time to switch on observability for your model than it took to read this announcement!

If you are passionate about enabling robust and responsible AI, join our rock-star team. We are hiring: www.whylabs.ai/careers.

About WhyLabs
WhyLabs is on a mission to build the interface between humans and AI applications. The WhyLabs AI Observatory is the first SaaS solution that enables continuous monitoring of both data and model health. Teams rely on WhyLabs to monitor, understand, and improve AI applications without spending precious time on manual tasks. WhyLabs incubated at the Allen Institute for AI, a fundamental AI research institute, and is headquartered in Seattle. Learn more and supercharge your AI teams at www.whylabs.ai.

About Defy Partners
Founded in 2016, Defy is a Silicon Valley based early stage venture capital firm. Defy was founded to invest in entrepreneurs and companies looking to solve complex problems. Defy's focus is to help early stage companies mature and scale into companies ready for growth capital. The firm's team has more than 50 years of venture experience, successful operating backgrounds and actively helps successful entrepreneurs grow companies from inception through exit. Connect with Defy at https://defy.vc/ and @defyvc.

About AI Fund
AI Fund is a venture capital firm that strives to move humanity forward by accelerating the  adoption of AI. We help entrepreneurs solve large problems with creative uses of machine learning. We are a team of AI pioneers, operators, entrepreneurs, and investors, supported by top-tier partners including NEA, Sequoia, and Greylock. Learn more at https://aifund.ai.

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Open source standard for data logging: https://github.com/whylabs/whylogsAI Observatory: https://whylabs.ai/free